BIBLIOGRAPHY
The English economist, James E. Thorold Rogers, has included in his *Story of Holland, N. Y., Putnam, 1889, several chapters on topics of economic importance. A better, though larger and more expensive work, is Blok’s **History of the people of the Netherlands. N. Y., Putnam, 5 vol., 1898-1912.
I have attempted to cover the colonial and commercial history of the Dutch in their most important dependency in The Dutch in Java, N. Y., Macmillan, 1904.
CHAPTER XXI
ENGLAND: SURVEY OF COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT
227. Survey of England’s position and resources about 1500.—The importance which English commerce assumed in this period and has since maintained, justifies us in pausing at the start to consider the conditions prevailing at the beginning of the period, about 1500.
England and Wales together had an area much smaller than that of most of the important continental states, about equal to the area of Illinois, and less than that of New England. Ireland was a sort of colonial possession, counting for little; Scotland remained till about 1700 an independent kingdom, and continued to be relatively unimportant after the union. England (a term which will be used roughly for other parts of the United Kingdom as they were included) had from nature one endowment of supreme advantage, separation by the Channel from the Continent, which made unnecessary for defense the government of a military absolutism, and allowed an early development of popular freedom.
From the economic standpoint, however, the climate favored grazing rather than tillage, and the mineral resources, aside from tin, were still of comparatively little use. England was a poor as well as a small country in 1500, needing to rely upon the energy of the people and upon their cooperation among themselves and with the government to win a place among the leading countries.
228. England’s chief advantage; her advanced organization.—Progress had been made, however, in various lines of which the importance was to appear as time went on. Serfdom had disappeared from the country districts, and production was stimulated by a fair reward for work well done. On the basis of their flourishing sheep industry the English had built up a cloth manufacture which had outgrown the narrow restrictions of the old gild system, and won the inestimable advantage of an organization like that of modern times; the industry was not so much ruled by antiquated custom or by the laws of politicians, as guided by specialists who had invested their capital in manufacture or trade, and who linked their fortunes with progress and extension.
229. Benefits of the English political constitution.—Finally, in summing up the advantages which the English of this period enjoyed, we must put as perhaps the chief and certainly a very important one, their political development. They were not only spared from the necessity of using their resources to repel a foreign invasion, they had attained to national unity among themselves; and they had a government which, however crude it may seem now, was much more closely in touch with the people than that of most states, and which proved capable of further development at comparatively slight expense, measured in men and money. The student who, in estimating the commercial assets of England during this period, left out of account the English constitution would go wide of the mark. Spanish inquisition and expulsions, Dutch corruption, French oppression and revolution, German or Italian disunion—to be free from these was worth great wealth.
230. Development of the English into an active commercial people about the fifteenth century.—The English historian, Seeley, combats the idea that it is “in the blood” of Englishmen, that it is “the genius of the race” to be a maritime and colonizing people. During the Middle Ages, in fact, the English were not great navigators, in spite of the facilities offered by the excellent harbors and the rivers penetrating far inland; English commerce was carried on largely by foreigners, as has been said in a previous section. The advance of the English from passive to active commerce came at the close of the Middle Ages, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In 1400 English merchandise was mostly borne in foreign ships; in 1500, it is said, English vessels carried more than half of all the cloth exported, and about three fourths of all the other wares.